Juan Velasco Alvarado

Juan Velasco Alvarado (16 June 1910-24 December 1977) was the leader of Peru from 3 October 1968 to 30 August 1975, succeeding Fernando Belaunde and preceding Francisco Morales Bermudez. Velasco, of humble origins, became a general in the Peruvian Army and overthrew the Belaunde government after it had failed to protect Peru's oil fields from foreign companies. Velasco was a beloved leader and, despite his overthrow in 1975, his casket was carried by peasants around Lima for six hours to show their respect and gratitude towards him.

Biography
Juan Velasco Alvarado was born on 16 June 1910 in Castilla, northern Peru, and he was one of the eleven children born to a medical assistant. His family was working-class, and Velasco worked as a shoeshine boy until he joined the Peruvian Army in 1929. In 1934, he graduated at the head of his class from Chorrillos Military School, and he would rise to be commander of the armed forces under President Fernando Belaunde. In 1968, he led a coup against the government after Belaunde signed over the La Brea y Parinas oil field to the International Petroleum Company, and he became president of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. He was the forefather of "Peruanismo", an ideology that supported giving justice to the poor, and he nationalized foreign companies in Peru. In 1972, he reformed education to give bilingual education for the indigenous people of Peru, and in 1975 he made Quechua an official language of Peru, the first Latin American country to make an indigenous language an official language. 300,000 families benefited from the nationalization of 15,000 properties in Peru.

Velasco's foreign policy consisted of forming friendly relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba, while he had poor relations with the United States, expelling the Peace Corps from the country. He also planned to reconquer all lands lost to Chile in the War of the Pacific, as he was hostile towards the pro-US dictator Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet considered a preventive war, but his own advisers told him that the Peruvian Air Force would destroy the Chilean Air Force in the first five minutes of the conflict; it was estimated that Bolivian forces could have taken Copiapo, halfway to Santiago, if they attacked in 1973 or 1978.

However, the 1974 crackdown on the press, unemployment, food shortages, inflation, and increased political opposition culminated in a coup in Tacna, nicknamed the Tacnazo. Francisco Morales Bermudez, the Prime Minister of Peru and a fellow general, launched a coup on 29 August 1975. Velasco decided that Peruvians should not fight each other, so he decided not to resist the coup. He died in 1977, having lost a leg to embolism and suffered from circulatory problems.